Ian Cowie was named Consumer Affairs Journalist of the Year in the
London Press Club Awards 2012. He has been head of personal finance at
Telegraph Media Group since 2008, having been personal finance editor
since 1989. He joined the paper in 1986. He is @iancowie on Twitter.

However, overlooking the dividends that shares pay would be foolish. According to Barclays Capital, nearly half the return from equities over the last 20 years came from dividends. Even over the very short term, the FTSE 100 total return index has increased marginally by 1.2pc since May.

More surprisingly, given how the eurozone crisis dominated headlines this year, investors who followed a St. Leger Day strategy when investing on the continent’s blue chip index, the Euro Stoxx 50, would have missed total returns of 12pc.

Justin Urquhart Stewart of Seven Investment Management commented: “Apart from the fact that the apparently unloved European stocks trounced the rest, the main issue is the more reliable fact that if you look at the total return, those boring little dividends make a tangible if modest difference, turning the FTSE 100 positive and improving the rest.

"In fact, had you sold and bought back, not only would you have lost the income, but also incurred the costs of
selling and buying back and suffered the further losses of the bid–offer spreads.”

Bearing in mind that the FTSE 100 remains lower than its level 12 years ago, you might just as well say: “Sell in December, 1999, and stay away forever”. But that doesn’t rhyme. And it wouldn’t be good for business.